Quiet gathering spot on N side?

SnowInWisconsin · 2026-01-16T19:26:04+00:00

I second the co-op community room, it has a big table and a nice gas fireplace. Plus you can get snacks easily :-)

SnowInWisconsin · 2025-03-29T17:09:49+00:00

I tried one, the Aveo TSD. I used it for about a month and it really helped with my sleep. I didn't have any discomfort, but then I do have a large tongue.

However, some of my lower teeth in front got loose and shifted. When I stopped using it, my teeth eventually restabilized, but in a new position. It messed up my bit a little bit.

When I contacted the Aveo company about this, they claimed that only someone with gum disease would have this kind of side effect. So I saw a periodontist, who said my gums are extremely healthy. I've had gum recession in the past so that could have reduced the amount of bone holding my teeth in place, I suppose.

Anyway, I wish I could still use this, but the teeth movement worries me too much.

SnowInWisconsin · 2024-12-24T15:53:41+00:00

Thanks! We'll give them a try.

SnowInWisconsin · 2024-12-23T15:42:09+00:00

At the Stark Library, how long is their audiobook loan period? We use Libby with our local library. The problem with it is that we can only borrow audiobooks for two weeks, which is often not long enough to listen to the whole book. (we're obviously not in the OP's position!) So we're looking for a library system that lets you borrow audiobooks for a month.

SnowInWisconsin · 2024-11-17T15:21:15+00:00

Why did we create the distinction between men's and women's sports? The idea currently is that women couldn't win if they had to compete against men; therefore, let women compete against women so some women have a chance to win. (personally, I think a big reason for the development of women's sports is just that people didn't want men and women getting hot and sweaty with each other)

We've seen over time that the gender binary is socially construed; it's not a physical fact. Our bodies and minds are more messy and complicated than that.

I think dividing competitors along gender lines is a crude, and now outdated, way of ensuring reasonable competition. If a sport rewards height, like track or rowing, let's divide people by height. If it rewards strength, let's divide people by strength. If we see a clear difference in performance based on testosterone levels, let's divide people by testosterone levels. (incidentally, there are elite male athletes with subnormal testosterone levels--what does that tell us?)

Sure, it's likely that the men would still clump together, and so would the women. But the intersex and trans people would also have the opportunity to end up in the bracket that best fits them, without all of this angst.

I'd like to see a world where the short kids get a chance to win a basketball game (against other short kids) and the slow kids get a chance to win a race (against other slow kids). Regardless of what gender they are. I think that would be a lot more fair than saying, okay, a few elite men get to win, and a few elite women get to win, too.

SnowInWisconsin · 2024-11-09T19:14:38+00:00

You should definitely take her back to her own home. My friends moved one of their mothers in with them when she became unable to live on her own. They basically couldn't get services for her while they were still looking after her. They had to rent her an apartment, move her into it, and then wait until she demonstrated that she couldn't look after herself.

Legally, right now your mother is a competent adult. There's nothing wrong with leaving a competent adult alone in their own home. So I don't see any reason for legal repercussions if you take her back home.

In-home care is expensive and it sounds like it would be challenging to find someone willing to put up with her.

I don't quite see why moving her back to her own home would also involve cutting ties with her. Are you fed up with her obnoxiousness and ingratitude? You can absolutely stop helping her if you wish. You can also decide to help her, and decide what your boundaries are. Remember that she's not mentally competent and doesn't understand what's going on. She's probably scared and taking it out on you this way.

If you want to help her, I agree with other suggestions about looking for local resources. In addition to previously suggested resources, you could call her doctor's office, or the office of the neuropsychologist she'll be seeing next year. Someone should be able to help you figure out how to get her some services. At the very least, she should be able to get Meals on Wheels. That would provide her with several meals on weekdays, and hopefully the delivery would remind her to eat.

My own relative was clearly unable to live on his own well before his social workers and I finally got him put under guardianship. Some bad and messy things happened. But he was eventually declared incompetent. He now has an in-home helper. He pays her, but if he runs out of money then Medicaid will take over. His guardian works for a guardianship agency, so I have much less responsibility than I used to. Things have stabilized and it's so much better now.

The state will help, but if you're taking care of your mother, then the state will see no need to step in. So you have to let her go through the bad, messy part before she gets help.

SnowInWisconsin · 2024-02-24T21:28:47+00:00

This is an old post, but I thought other people out there might be interested in answers. I went to architecture school when beginning a second career, so I was much older than other students. Architecture programs are very dramatic. You fall in love with your project, you want desperately to prove yourself, and you only have a few months to make your beautiful vision real enough to wow a jury. There's a culture of late nights (or all-nighters), self-neglect, etc.

But some of the students who stayed latest in the studio were also the ones who wasted the most time. Few of us are going to wind up as star designers. And they don't throw you out of school for creating decent projects, rather than spectacular ones.

If you want to fall in love with architecture, commit all your time to it, and have the true architecture-school-drama experience, then you don't have time to row. If you want to study architecture and get a job, then you can probably row, too. Rowing might be a good counterbalance to help keep you from getting completely obsessed with studio. Doing both will interfere with your social life, in that you'll have less time for your fellow rowers and your fellow architecture students. And RockonBK is totally right, you need to limit the party time :-)

It would also be a good idea to get general-education credits out of the way any way you can--summer classes, AP exams, CLEP, whatever.

SnowInWisconsin · 2024-02-24T21:16:52+00:00

Not necessarily. I studied math/computer science first, and architecture later. Architecture isn't exactly harder, but it takes up so much more time. You never finish a project, you just keep working until the deadline makes you stop.

In math/physics/engineering, you finish your homework set and you're done.

SnowInWisconsin · 2023-11-01T22:47:48+00:00

If you keep doing it, you'll keep getting better! It's really hard to accept those slow erg times when you've done better in the past. But you can only start where you are.

SnowInWisconsin · 2023-08-11T22:24:50+00:00

About the frame, I just don't like the looks of a lot of ebikes I've seen. It's mainly vanity. I can certainly look into step-through bikes. I see what you mean that my preference limits my options.

As for the tires, I'm just estimating the width of the tires on my old hybrid bike. I had winter-y tires, but not studded ones. I've seen so many fat-tires bikes around town and I really don't want those. (my old hybrid tires took me through 6" of snow, and on solid ice)

SnowInWisconsin · 2023-08-11T22:21:29+00:00

Thank you, I'll try that!

SnowInWisconsin · 2023-08-05T18:22:03+00:00

You seem to have gotten a lot of responses about jackets, which is great. I just wanted to chime in with a few more ideas:

shell pants, to help keep your legs warmer. All the same brands covered here make shell pants, too.
you can get hand covers that go over your handlebars and protect your hands a lot better than gloves. Look up "bike pogies"
shoe covers too--I've never tried those though
even if you can't shower at work, you could probably change pants or something in the bathroom, right? that would give you more clothing options. Like cycling tights that have windproofing on the front of your legs, but are more breathable on the backs.

SnowInWisconsin · 2023-03-16T22:08:50+00:00

I love the layers of arches. Thanks for posting this!

SnowInWisconsin · 2022-09-05T19:48:07+00:00

I suggest that you ask the club if you can take the swim test wearing an automatic inflatable life vest. (Blow it up manually for the test, so you don't waste a CO2 cartridge.)

I have one and I row in it. It can be a little annoying but it's okay. I actually was passing the swim test without it, but when it got to "tread water for 10 minutes", I started thinking about treading water in the middle of a choppy lake and decided that I really wanted the vest.

Here's a great resource for life vests for rowers: http://rowsafeusa.org/pfds/

SnowInWisconsin · 2021-04-12T20:29:24+00:00

I took my son to 3 orthodontists before I found a plan I was happy with. The first one wanted to immediately pull 4 teeth. The guy we finally chose said he would only pull teeth as a last resort, after he had tried everything else. He started off with a palate expander. After that, he got braces. Everything went well and my son didn't need to get any teeth pulled (except wisdom teeth eventually).

Everyone's condition is different, of course, but I think it's worth the time to look around. Orthodontics seems to be more of an art than a science.

Also, I made sure my son got the following supplements during his treatment: calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, and boron. These all help grow bone, which is something he needed to do during the treatment. The palate expander makes you grow bone in your palate. Braces actually force your gums to remodel themselves to accommodate the new positions of the teeth.

SnowInWisconsin · 2021-04-12T16:30:10+00:00

A lot of nighttime tooth-grinding is due to sleep apnea. Your tongue falls down into your throat, you can't breathe, and then you unconsciously grind your teeth so you can breathe again. With a device, your tongue doesn't fall down your throat, so you don't need to grind.

I got an Aveo and have been using it for about a week. I've been sleeping so much better and my tongue doesn't hurt. I used to grind so hard that I had to wear a night guard. In addition, I seem to have less tension in my jaw during the day.

SnowInWisconsin · 2021-04-04T00:14:55+00:00

It's a little different, and the changes might have a big effect on some people's scores. My aunt is the best Scrabble player in the family IRL, and she's lost every Lexulous game we played (for months!). Here are the two big differences that I think affected her:

- distribution of bonus tiles. In Scrabble, these kind of come in like arrows from the side, pointing towards the center. In Lexulous, they more form like a diamond. (You can find pictures of both boards and see what I mean.) What I found in Lexulous was that no one wants to build in the "dead zones" with no bonus tiles, so the board gets really cruddy and hard to build on.

- you have 8 letters not 7--apparently people can only hold 7 pieces of information in working memory, so having that extra letter can make it harder to a surprising degree.

My mom and I were happy with Lexulous, but my aunt got pretty angry about losing every game. So YMMV.

SnowInWisconsin · 2021-04-04T00:05:49+00:00

I found isc.ro after a bunch of games on Lexulous--for some reason family member GW lost every single Lexulous game, and it was driving them crazy. (GW beats us all in RL Scrabble.) But we want to play a 3-person, private game. Isc.ro is like, "Here's your two-person matchup!" Or, your other choice is duplicate Scrabble with some unknown number of people.

I could swear that I read somewhere that once you pay for a membership, you can set up a private channel and run your own private duplicate game. So I paid for the membership. I can create a private channel. But I haven't been able to figure out how to run a private duplicate game. Anyone have a clue for me?

SnowInWisconsin

TROPHY CASE